Houston we have a problem : Breakup of Comet Elenin is slowing it down

So is this thing definitely breaking up or what?? Have we figured this out?

Originally posted by greenCo

Originally posted by chr0naut
reply to post by greenCo

 

You are absolutely right about velocity equaling mass times acceleration.

When you break something up, all the pieces have the same total mass as the original object. This is true for a comet moving through space.

As there is no change in mass.

There is no significant change in velocity.

There may be a tiny change due to the greater area of interaction with the solar wind due to the increase in area facing the Sun, but this is trivial as there was already an interaction with the solar wind before the break up.

No, each part has less mass, so less velocity (even though its relatively accelerating right now, because the perihelion thing). Its no more one object, but several ones. Furthermore, we don´t know the extent of this breaking happening to elenin.

edit on 9-9-2011 by greenCo because: (no reason given)

Then where does the mass go?

Are you saying that an orange falling to Earth at 9.8 m per sec per sec (in a vacuum, just to be anile about parameters) falls faster than the same orange cut into two halves?

COULD ELENIN PLEASE HURRY UP AND DESTROY US SO I CAN BE PIT OUT OF MISERY OF SEEING ANOTHER ELENIN POST THAT DOESN'T COME EVEN CLOSE TO ACTUAL SCIENCE! jeeesh!

i don't know if Elelin has broken up or if it has changed velocity. However i will reply as if it has broken up.

What does make sense to me is that the energy which caused it to breakup could have had some influence both on it's velcoity and it's trajectory. All depends on why it broke up and what direction the force of the breakup was applied. It is quite possible, at least in my mind, that some pieces may have accelerated and some may have decelerated due to the force and direction of the separation.

Originally posted by chr0naut

Originally posted by greenCo

Originally posted by chr0naut
reply to post by greenCo

 

You are absolutely right about velocity equaling mass times acceleration.

When you break something up, all the pieces have the same total mass as the original object. This is true for a comet moving through space.

As there is no change in mass.

There is no significant change in velocity.

There may be a tiny change due to the greater area of interaction with the solar wind due to the increase in area facing the Sun, but this is trivial as there was already an interaction with the solar wind before the break up.

No, each part has less mass, so less velocity (even though its relatively accelerating right now, because the perihelion thing). Its no more one object, but several ones. Furthermore, we don´t know the extent of this breaking happening to elenin.

edit on 9-9-2011 by greenCo because: (no reason given)

Then where does the mass go?

Are you saying that an orange falling to Earth at 9.8 m per sec per sec (in a vacuum, just to be anile about parameters) falls faster than the same orange cut into two halves?

Let's say it started falling as a whole and then was cut in half by a mid air razor. Wouldn't that razor exert enough resistance to slow down the orange as whole? That's why I think it is bordering on ignorant to say that the separation of the comet automatically has no effect on it's speed.

how is any of this relevant if the 2 km wide object is going to miss us by 2 million miles ?

Originally posted by syrinx high priest
how is any of this relevant if the 2 km wide object is going to miss us by 2 million miles ?

I believe that should be 22 million miles.
Not that 2 million isn't enough to make it a non-event.
But at 22 million miles, it's not much more than a cosmic poof.

Did anyone notice Ancient Aliens TV show on Thursday was about how new diseases and plagues arrive via comets and meterorites? They deliberately said this is how the aliens would bring our numbers down discretely.
They talked about the black plague, the spanish flu, and other eppisodes of death during the darkened skies after meterorite strikes in the past. Bacteria such as salmonella becomes super salamonella after being weightless in space. It was an eye opening and disturbing show this week.

I'm curious about something....

All you people that think you know that Elenin is going to hit/kill/effect/what-the-heck-ever us, what information do you base this on? Youtube videos and "leaked" inside information? You make a point of belittling people that believe NASA, yet your own "sources" (if you have any) are even less reliable. Has NASA EVER been wrong about a comet causing problems for earth? Have they ever said "no, it won't hit us, it won't effect us" only to have said comet actually hit and/or effect us? Think about that.

Now look at your "sources" which most likely have predicted numerous dooms days in the past that never happened. They were probably wrong about 100% of their previous information.

Compare the two, and just think to yourself.

Why anyone thinks Elenin is anything other than a boring tiny little comet that will pass earth without anything happening is beyond me.

reply to post by sligtlyskeptical


There's no super space razor to provide any friction against.

The comet was made from stuff that is gaseous at normal Earth temperatures but is frozen out in space. As it came close to the Sun it got warm, melted & out-gassed.

It's orbital velocity remains unchanged.

The video & OP were wrong. As Phage posted, the relative orbital velocity is increasing as it approaches perihelion (part of the orbital mechanics) and this is quite the opposite of slowing down.

It wasn't going to hit us. It isn't going to hit us. We are at least 21 MILLION miles away at its closest pass. It is small. It cannot effect us gravitationally or electrically. It is not in orbit around the Sun and so we've never seen it before. When it exits the solar system, it will never return. And now, to top it all off, it has broken up into a cloud even before hitting perihelion.

It is simply a non-event.

All the BS said about it in the last few months (including the OP) is patently, obviously a waste of bandwidth. How people can't see such things are nonsense and keep repeating the same crap so often is the real conspiracy.

A conspiracy of stupidity and ignorance.

Deny it!

Deny ignorance.

reply to post by chr0naut


You are quite wrong in what the comet cannot do. IF it is breaking up, the various parts can be do all of what you say it cannot do: speed up, change direction and slow down. Which piece did what would depend upon the reason for the breakup, the forces involved and the position of the pieces while a whole before the breakup.

What a natural comet will not do is to virtually go crazy and drastically do any of those possible motions in a frenzied way.

Of the three different things the pieces can do, speed up, change direction, or slow down, the least likely is to change direction in any great manner. And I say again, all three changes of the original orbit will be virtually undetectable except for the extreme accuracy of the predicted orbit. At any rate, the new motion, if any, will not be substantially different than the former.

Originally posted by Phage
reply to post by greenCo

 

All of the fragments would be in free fall, just as the original comet was. All of the fragments would be under the influence of the Sun's gravity to the same extent. As Galileo demonstrated, the rate of acceleration of a falling object is not dependent upon it's mass. There would be no noticeable change in velocity.

edit on 9/9/2011 by Phage because: (no reason given)

Wow, Phage - Are all of your comments being supported by your observations with your own personal equipment?

reply to post by Theophoros



"....and noone has ever been hit by a sattelite........in fifty years." LOL!
Nice way to hold back till the end thar...obviously poor for the person that got hit......
but yeah...them MSM reporters...yeah

reply to post by [davinci]


Great to hear the Chronicles of Riddick remark. I was thinking the exact same thing. Glad at least its not just my brain thats been holly-wood-ized... lol..

Necromongers.

hmmm...

Originally posted by Pauligirl

Originally posted by syrinx high priest
how is any of this relevant if the 2 km wide object is going to miss us by 2 million miles ?

I believe that should be 22 million miles.
Not that 2 million isn't enough to make it a non-event.
But at 22 million miles, it's not much more than a cosmic poof.

really ? yikes. so a 2 kilometer wide (estimated) comet is going to pass us at 22 million miles away and people are freaked out. oh my god look at the moon ! It's coming right for us !!!

reply to post by chr0naut


You know, I really haven't enough information to make any kind of intelligent judgment on what it will or will not do. You know, things like composition, density, reactivity, etc. All I know is that some experts say its a comet, and those same experts say its made out of ice. We are finding new elements in space everyday. Imagine if it were partly made of raw sodium, or magnesium, or lithium and it came through the atmosphere to land in water? Imagine if it were made of any reactive substance at all?

Its just as likely that it is indeed made of swiss cheese, and will plop right down on the dinner table.

Im really not attempting to be cheeky here, just to say that if you are always worried about "what-ifs" you could spend your entire life worrying about them, and avoid living a fulfilling life all together...

There are literally so many variables that it is useless to worry about what will happen...

So, without any knowledge of what the thing is actually made of (and by this I mean first hand knowledge, not what you have heard from a press release) we have no idea...whatsoever... what could happen.

Its all just... good speculation.

it can't slow down unless it is under power. controlled, in other words, even if it was breaking up.

if anything it should speed up as it gets closer to the gravity well of the sun.

and breaking up of this thing can be a bummer if the frags get too far apart.

I dislike this comet and the threads that go along with it

reply to post by Swills


Yeah, it has gotten a little old, and is a sorry use of bandwidth. I just wish if there is another thread on it, it has something ...new...or

nevermind. Unless theres proof, Im tired of it as well...

Originally posted by greenCo

Originally posted by chr0naut
reply to post by Theophoros

 

Latest science says it does appear to have broken up. Even its discoverer Leon Elenin has commented on its break up.

Because the pieces are in the vacuum of space and the forces upon the comet are unchanged, they are not, essentially, changing direction, slowing down, speeding up or anything similar. The comet is just becoming softer and fuzzier as moves on its original orbital trajectory.

Not at all.
Velocity = mass * acceleration... so less mass because is breaking up, then less velocity. Simple physics.

Eh what?

F = ma. That is, the sum of forces acting on the object causes an acceleration that is inversely
proportional to mass.

Taking about the relationship between velocity and mass, you must mean the conservation of momentum.